Homesteading in the ‘burbs

Homesteading is a term that can mean many things. In my life, homesteading looks much different than it might to someone who grew up on a farm.

To me, homesteading is setting my home space (in this case, a suburban home in Sandy, Utah) for self sufficiency. The idea of self sufficiency while being down the road from a well stocked grocery store may seem silly, until you remember the Great Toilet Paper fights of 2020. So many people now have extra toilet paper stashed somewhere in their home, just in case.

I grew up in semi rural Alabama (The Krogers was about 10 minutes away and when we got The Walmarts it was about 15 minutes away, so not TOO rural). Every year we had a garden and every year we would harvest and preserve corn, tomatoes, green beans and black eyed peas. From my mother, I learned how to can and how to prep and parboil for the freezer. We also purchased meat from people we knew, and stored it in a giant chest freezer in the laundry room.

We had about an acre of land, but our garden was pretty small compared how big our yard was. Now, at my current home, the garden is about 1/2 of the backyard. I’m not canning or freezing food in order to be able to afford groceries for a growing family (I am 1 of 8 kids, and am child free), but I love having a garden so much. I love being able to can, to make my home made pasta sauce that can sustain us for all our pasta sauce needs for two years. To make jam out of the strawberries and raspberries that grow in patches in my front and back yards.

And that is just the start. Homesteading is so many things, and for me it started with a garden in Alabama and a mom that taught me how to be self sufficient.